Boris Johnson’s ex chief of staff is plotting a startup political party to take on the Conservatives in the election after next.
Dominic Cummings has said it is “time to build a startup” to “replace the rotten Tories and win in 2028”.
But a Tory critic dismissed the plan, telling The Times it was “yet more mad ramblings from a narcissistic egomaniac who is thankfully becoming increasingly irrelevant”.
Mr Cummings, who was Mr Johnson’s most senior advisor, said Rishi Sunak is the hardest-working MP with the highest IQ, but has “no grip of power, no governing plan, no message and no political strategy worth spit”.
Writing for subscribers to his blog, Mr Cummings said he is already receiving messages from MPs and donors asking how to rebuild the party.
“This is the time to start building the replacement so that from 2200 on election night in October-December 2024 the old Party is buried and a new set of people with new ideas start talking to the country and can take over in 2028 and give voters the sort of government they want and deserve,” Mr Cummings said.
His agenda is similar to the agenda he wanted to pursue in Downing Street with Mr Johnson, being “tougher” on crime, security and immigration and pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights.
It would also freeze or cut taxes for working people, reduce the size of the state and close tax loopholes which benefit the wealthy.
On the one hand, I wish he’d bugger off and take his tired old sack of policies with him. On the other hand, I like the idea of splitting the Tory vote. I’m still leaning towards him just buggering off and letting the Tories continue making themselves unelectable.
If he can split the vote significantly, the Tories might finally give up on FPTP
Now there’s an upside.
No way he’ll split the vote. Any party he founds will just be known, if at all, as the party of the Barnard Castle Guy.
That’s like saying that the Tories are the party of the guy hanging from a zip wire. The messaging will still cut through for Agnes, 83, who saw a person of colour at ASDA last week and is worried immigrants are coming for her pension.
Be careful what you wish for, the last time a split of the Tory vote was threatened we ended up with, well, everything since 2015.
Just remember how much Cummings had to do with Brexit and his links to 55 Tufton St. He is nothing more than a front man to make money for the rich.
He’s an absolute disgrace, and a very dangerous one at that!
that reminds me, barnard castle is supposed to be lovely. might book a trip
I’m overdue for an eye test. Thanks for reminding me!
I wasn’t sure how Cummings’ idea differed from all the other “mad ramblings from a narcissistic egomaniac” we’ve seen from the Tories lately. And then I read this:
The goal is to win in 2028, govern for two terms and then self-destruct as a legal entity, so the project is credibly hardwired to be fundamentally different to a normal party
I’m really struggling to see what’s not “mad” about creating a party that is designed to self-destruct after two terms. Unless it’s merely an acknowledgement of reality that every party is fighting like cats in a sack after 10 years of government, and since it’s going to happen anyway, might as well plan for it?
I think the idea is: get in, re-engineer things for their rich mates without having to worry about future electability and then disappear job done. Not sure how that’s too different from current Tory policies other than he wants to implement the plan with more competence.
Which makes it extra weird that one of his stated goals is closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and lowering taxes for workers. Maybe his rich mates rely more on employment income than offshore tax havens.
Maybe the end goal is authoritarian dictatorship. Don’t need a party anymore if you’re going to do away with that pesky election business.
Cutting taxes for “workers” will give the most money to those earning the highest wages.
Closing tax loopholes is one that is paid lip service to buy nothing is ever done about it. Perhaps it’ll address non dom status to target foreign billionaires?
Maybe his rich mates rely more on employment income than offshore tax havens.
Pretty much and there’s no mention of touching wealth either which they have plenty of.
Yep. I don’t believe for a moment that his new party would actually be good for anyone but the wealthiest. Certainly not going to vote for them!
Even in that short list, he’s contradicted himself. A state that’s ‘“tougher” on crime’ needs more police, more judges and more prison guards. It needs more equipment, more cells and more office space. It needs more support staff and office staff to help all of that actually work. It cannot also be a smaller state, unless you radically shrink other areas of the state.
I mean, it totally can be a smaller state and do that. The spending that these people want more of are things like law enforcement and defence - which are big budgets in £ terms, but do not account for particularly large %s of public spending relative to things like health and social care, education, pensions and benefits, etc.
These people believe they can shrink the state dramatically whilst still spending a lot more on their pet issues. When you look at the size of the various budgets, they’re not wrong factually. So I’d focus your fire on the ways in which they’re wrong morally and philosophically.
Piece of shit thinks his former colleagues are pieces of shit, wants to form his own piece of shit party to take it in his own shitty direction. What a twat.
